devil’s food cake

I crave chocolate…a lot.

Many people tend to stay away from chocolate desserts at restaurants. As for me, I’ll choose a chocolate dessert 9 out of 10 times for the simple fact that… I LOVE chocolate. (that’s an understatement by the way)

I like chocolate on its own. It is nice to have some other simple ingredients complement chocolate BUT, I really just like chocolate, chocolate. Hence, David Lebovitz’s devil’s food cake is one of my favorites because its just… chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. (I just realized that I’ve used the word “chocolate” 11 times :P)

Just check out that luscious chocolate ganache! Absolutely irresistible…

I’ve baked this recipe countless of times and it is really a fool proof recipe. This recipe is great for beginners and never fails to wow the crowd.

The original recipe asks to be baked in a 9 inch pan but because I only have an 8 inch one, the pictures above are baked in an 8 inch pan and everything still works great! A while ago, I’ve also been asked to bake this same chocolate cake for 4 people, and decided to bake a 6 inch version of the cake. For the full recipe, please click on the direct link above. Here are some guidelines on how you can create a 6 inch version of the recipe, as well as some additional advice:

To make a 6 inch version of the cake, half everything – cake and ganache.

I hardly ever have cake flour at home and decided to make it instead using a proportion of all purpose flour and corn starch. Click here for full instructions.

I do not usually have unsweetened cocoa powder on hand but have Valrhona dutch processed cocoa powder instead. I used that instead of unsweetened cocoa powder with great results.

For the ganache, David’s recipe says to leave it to room temperature for about 1 hour until it is spreadable. When I was living in Seattle, and here now in sunny Singapore, this was never possible for me. No matter how long I waited, it was always still too watery. I find that putting it in the fridge yields much better results. I usually make the ganache first, put it in the fridge and start making the cake layers. By the time the cake is ready to be iced, the ganache would be very cold and a little too hard. I would put it in the microwave for 8 seconds and the ganache would be perfect spreadable consistency.

3 Comments

Hi,
I need some guidance.I made this cake yesterday. Though the flavor was yummy and crumb was moist and soft but I dont know why my cake had vertical lines as in when I sliced it, it had vertical lines all across the crumb like cylindrical holes.. so it wasn’t looking presentable though guests liked the taste. Can you suggest what went wrong??

Hi Ayesha! I’ve never encountered that before but I did some internet research to find out why. People commonly refer it to “tunneling” in cakes and it seems to be because of over-mixing. The batter doesn’t require you to mix much, but just need to ensure that ingredients are incorporated. See this site for more info: http://bakingbites.com/2011/06/what-is-tunneling/